UAN Appoints Emergency Animal Rescue Service Volunteer Leaders

SACRAMENTO (August 22, 2008) – United Animal Nations (UAN) has named five volunteers to serve as Regional Directors for its Emergency Animal Rescue Service (EARS), which shelters and cares for animals displaced by natural disasters and other crises, such as criminal seizures and hoarding cases.

EARS Regional Directors monitor situations that may affect animals in their designated geographic regions; network with emergency management and animal control agencies; and work with local authorities and other animal protection organizations to operate temporary shelters for displaced animals as needed.

The new Regional Directors are:

• Janna Hage of The Dalles, Oregon
  Region X: Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington
  Hage is the founder and executive director of Home at Last Humane Society, a non-profit shelter in The Dalles that took over the municipal animal control contract and reduced the community’s euthanasia rate from 80 percent to 9 percent.
• Stacey Harris of Cedar Park, Texas
  Region VI: Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas
  Harris is an assistant branch manager with Chase Bank and a longtime volunteer with the Austin Humane Society. She is certified in pet first aid and is currently taking classes to be able to provide veterinary technician support in a shelter environment.
• Marcel Marcotte of Central North River, Nova Scotia
  Region XI: New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island and Quebec
  An occupational health and safety coordinator with the Metropolitan Regional Housing Authority, Marcotte was a Red Cross volunteer team leader who has responded to numerous disasters, including Hurricane Ivan in Selma, Alabama in 2004 and wildfires in British Columbia in 2003.
• Lori Prantil
  Region III: Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, WashingtonD.C. and West Virginia
  Prantil trained to be an EARS volunteer in 2003 and has responded to several disasters, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Charley in Bartow, Florida in 2004. She currently works as a veterinary assistant and is certified in pet first aid.  
• Karla Schulte of Shawnee, Kansas
  Region VII: Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska
  Schulte is an administrative manager with Hallmark Cards, a volunteer and board member of the Humane Society of Greater Kansas City, and co-chair of the annual Dog N Jog fundraising race in Kansas City. In June 2008 she spent two weeks in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, leading a team of EARS volunteers at a temporary shelter for animal flood victims.

UAN has more than 4,000 EARS volunteers in the United States and Canada, including eight regional directors. Since 1987, UAN’s EARS volunteers have responded to more than 80 emergencies, including a series of wildfires in Butte County, California in 2008; the Greensburg,Kansas tornado in 2007; a power outage in St. Louis in 2006 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Founded in 1987, United Animal Nations is North America ’s leading provider of emergency animal sheltering and disaster relief services and a key advocate for the critical needs of animals.

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